51.
Well, I am back from a short trip to the Ozarks, which was absolutely lovely. Just too short. I always find I am not ready to return home from there.
In any case, my absence from my blog the last few days marked the end of fifty-one days of continuous posting on my blog. As far as I know, that is the longest continuous span of posting I have ever achieved and certainly the longest in recent years, when my posting here has been rather sporadic.
I wanted to do that for two reasons. First, I think the discipline of daily posting makes one think creatively about what can be posted and avoid turning a blog into a place for only highly polished pieces seemingly better fit to an online publication (like OFB). Second, after seeing a number of my favorite blogs from years past essentially dry up, I wanted to shore up my own commitment to the medium of blogging.
While the continuous posting has been broken, I am going to try to keep up daily posting more often in the future. I think its a habit that is actually constructive.
Maybe the break in posting means it's time to build pre-publishing into the system so the blog will be updated daily even when you're slacking…er, vacationing?
I have actually thought about it!
It's hard to come up with daily posts when you have those days where you just lounge around and read or watch tv.
I do have a couple posts that I've been writing for the future though, but I'm working on collecting posts in advance and post them daily.
For instance, I'm working on a post about fantasy football, but don't want to post it until around football season.
I have also been working on a post concerning Ubuntu lucid. I thought I would have it done the other day, but didn't get a chance.
David, that's part of what I like about the discipline of daily posting. While I can often spend a lot of time crafting a post, I'd rather save that sort of time for an article. Posting daily means my posts are more “raw.”
There's a balance I haven't found. Often, I decide not to blog something because I want to sit down “later” to write a well-crafted article, only to lose it in the dead letter bin of my brain. Other times, I blog something in a hurry, then wish I'd taken more time with it.
I think I can make better use of the 'drafts' feature of wordpress to help. If I take the ideas for 'later' and save them as drafts, then I can easily publish them if I decide not to take the time for a full polish. And, if I let a post sit as a draft for a day or two, it gives a little buffer in which to decide I'd like to spend more time on it.
I keep meaning to add drafts capabilities to SAFARI. I might do that someday.